Dealer Gavin Brown is the subject of a recent profile in W Magazine,  documenting his pioneering work in the New York art scene, and his ongoing war against the status quo for gallery spaces in an increasingly uncertain time for mid-level galleries.  “It always petrifies me, these moments of shift. And if you focus on this small world of artists and galleries and museums, I think we’re kind of spinning our wheels wondering what’s next because we know something is coming.  All the old models seem to be running out of gas. It’s a fascinating time,” Brown says. “Everything is up in the air.” (more…)

Fearing for her son, the suspect in the theft of seven paintings by Picasso, Monet and more from a Dutch Museum, a Romanian woman has come forth saying that she has burned the paintings in her stove.  Olga Dogaru, the mother of suspect Rodu Dogaru, had buried the works when her son was arrested, and finally destroyed them in February.  Investigators are analyzing the contents of her stove to check for evidence of the works, which were worth tens of millions of dollars. (more…)

Floor Cone (1962), in front of Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, (1963) Image courtesy of Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio.

Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929, Stockholm) is widely regarded as one of the founding pioneers of Pop Art, a superstar in the history of art, and a visionary who opened new doors on the world of conceptual practice, sculpture and performance.  Embracing this foundational role, the artist’s current retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art maps the early beginnings of Oldenburg’s career, alongside the formative years of Pop Art.  (more…)

The M+ museum in Hong Kong’s developing West Kowloon district has announced that it will appoint Doryun Chong as its head curator.  Mr. Chong is currently serving as the associate curator of painting at MoMA, where he organized shows of work by Ernesto Neto, Bruce Nauman, and Henrik Olesen.  He will also oversee the completion of the M+ project, working under Dr. Lars Nittve. (more…)

London’s Mayfair district, traditionally known for its boutique shops and high-end British art galleries, is seeing a number of American dealers moving in, The New York Times reports.  Gagosian, Pace, David Zwirner and more have opened spaces in the area, seeking to provide an even greater global offering for potential artists and customers in a vibrant market.  “We’re all chasing the same artists,” says Marc Glimcher, president of Pace. “But the intensity of interest in art in London is long-lasting. You can get 10 reviews in 10 different newspapers. And besides the new collectors and galleries, there is a very vibrant museum community.” (more…)

The ongoing growth of the Asian art market has brought a new focus on local identities and markets within the region, The Guardian reports, leading to a new market segment increasingly interested in predominantly Asian artists and works.  “What’s happening in London or New York remains important of course, but so is what’s happening in Mumbai, Jogjakarta or Tokyo,” says Philip Tinari, director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing. (more…)

Opening in October, the Tate Modern will present a landmark exhibition of works by German-Swiss painter Paul Klee.  Exhibiting over 100 of the artist’s works, the show will aim to “redress the idea that he was a quirky artist, allowing his cat to paint, but rather show that he was extremely rigorous, with a clear sense of how his work was progressing … and it will give a sense of the extraordinary variety of his production.”  Says Tate curator Matthew Gale. (more…)

Taiyo Kimura, Performance Study With Plastic Bag (1997), via MoMAPS1

In the hustle and bustle of the art fairs and auctions of the two weeks prior, the opening of MoMA’s EXPO 1: New York went almost unnoticed, despite its three-venue makeup that includes modules at the museum’s midtown location, the PS1 annex in Queens, and at the newly built VW dome in the Far Rockaway, all which explore new conceptions of ecology and politics in the post-millenial landscape.

Steve McQueen, Static (2009), via MoMAPS1 (more…)

Tech millionaire, Zita Cobb, is working to rejuvenate a previously struggling Canadian fishing community where she was born. Fogo Island is now home to a Shorefast, a foundation that provides a micro finance fund for local entrepreneurs and a research center devoted to sustainable fishing, as well as numerous arts studios and Fogo Island Inn, which opened in May. The foundation and hotel aim to immerse themselves fully in the island’s history, with furniture inspired from local style and workmanship by the island’s craftsmen.

Read more at The Financial Times

MoMA’s PS1 campus in Long Island City, Queens, has received $3 million in funding from the city of New York, needed to purchase an adjacent building for expansion.  The new space, located at 22-01 Jackson Ave., will potentially be utilized for museum office space, freeing the main building up for more exhibition spaces.  “You want dynamic institutions like MoMA PS 1 to continue to change, to progress and to grow, and they can’t do that without the physical expansion,” Said City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer. “I think it’s great for the neighborhood, it’s great for Long Island City.” (more…)

The New York Times has published a spotlight on artist Robert Therrien, done in conjunction with his ongoing retrospective at the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, NY.  The artist has moved somewhat below the currents of the contemporary market, despite a broad body of work in sculpture and photography that has won him a considerable following and representation by Gagosian Gallery. He’s a very unusual person, and he’s a sweetie, too,” said Lynn Zelevansky of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. “It’s just so harmonious and so beautiful. It’s about experience, and this amazing capacity for invention.”

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With Dia’s announcement last month that it would deaccession some of its works in order to fund new acquisitions, a number of former leaders and collaborators have spoken against the move.  The sale of works, which will occur this fall, includes a number of works by Cy Twombly and Barnett Newman.  In a June 28th letter to the institution, former Menil Collection Director Paul Winkler writes: “The primary purpose of Dia has been to collect and present bodies of work by a select group of artists in permanent installations and to realize site-specific commissions, also in permanent situations. It is uninformed and disrespectful of your history to equate permanence with mausoleum.” (more…)

Preparing for the release of her anticipated album ARTPOP, pop star Lady Gaga has announced a series of collaborations with contemporary artists, including Jeff Koons, Marina Abramovic, Inez & Vinoodh and Robert Wilson.  Gaga has stated that her new project will “bring the music industry into a new age; an age where art drives pop, and the artist once again is in control of the ‘icon.'” (more…)

Constance Caplan, the chairman of the Hirshhorn Museum’s board of trustees, resigned on Monday. In a strongly worded letter to the Hirshhorn and Smithsonian Institution, Ms. Caplan cited a “lack of inclusiveness with which a number of trustees and staff associated with the Hirshhorn and the Smithsonian have behaved over the past year.” The divisions have now led to seven board members resigning within the last year, including the former chairman, J. Tomilson Hill.

Read more at The Washington Post

Urs Fischer (Installation View), photo by Stefan Altenburger, © Urs Fischer, Courtesy of the artist and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Occupying both the Grand Avenue and the Geffen Contemporary spaces at MOCA, Swiss-born, New York based artist Urs Fischer presents his first U.S. retrospective, culling from his diverse and unique body of work to fill both spaces with an overwhelming display of sculptural pieces and grandiose immersive environments.

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A number of wall drawings and other works by Sol LeWitt are set to open this fall, including an installation of Wall Drawing #599: Circles 18 at the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side, and an exhibition of the artist’s wall drawings at Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea.  “It is an opportunity to make art accessible for all ages, from strollers to wheelchairs, toddlers to people in their 90s.”  Says JCC executive director Rabbi Joy Levitt. (more…)

This coming fall, Sotheby’s will auction off a seminal work by pre-Raphaelite Dante Rosetti, a chalk drawing depicting Rosetti’s muse Janey Burden as the Greek Goddess Prosperine.  Described by the auction house as “one of the defining images of European art – instantly recognisable and representing the artist at the height of his originality,” the work will sell at auction this November in London, and is expected to command a sales price between £1.2 and £1.8 million. (more…)

President Barack Obama’s administration has announced the winners of the 2012 National Medal of Arts, including Ellsworth Kelly on the list of recipients.  Kelly, who turned 90 this year, is currently in the spotlight for a trio of New York shows this spring and summer, spanning the range of his career, and will accept the award tonight in Washington, DC.  Other recipients include landscape architect Laurie Olin. (more…)

Nick van Woert, Haruspex (Installation View), Courtesy Yvon Lambert Gallery

The work of American artist Nick van Woert is currently on view at the Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris.  Taking its name from a 2010 work, Haruspex refers to the practice of divination in Etruscan or Roman religious practice, called Haruspicy involving the interpretation of mens or predicting the future based on the entrails of animals. Inspired by the images of divination and dismemberment, the artist has constructed a series of pieces that approach modern economic and social conditions of the world through the deconstruction and application of material runoff.

Nick van Woert, Untitled (2013), courtesy of the Artist (more…)

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Con te Partiro (2009), via Brooklyn Museum

Shrouded in anonymity, the Bruce High Quality Foundation has made a career for themselves out of playful irreverence.  Rising out of the post-9/11 New York art scene, the anonymous collective has launched a campaign of physical aggression against public installations (Public Art Tackle), initiated their own free education classes, staged socio-politically charged morality plays on gentrification, all under the guise of a production of the Broadway musical Cats, all alongside a number of pieces and installations that embrace the juxtaposition of art history, pop culture and contemporary society to “invest the experience of public space with wonder.”

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Ode to Joy (2001–2013) (Installation View), via Brooklyn Museum (more…)

Rapper Jay-Z appeared at New York’s Pace Gallery today, performing his song Picasso Baby for 6 hours straight.  The marathon performance was part of the artist’s “Docu-music” video for the song, and featured a moment where the rapper danced with Marina Abramovic.  Other notable attendees included Marilyn Minter, Laurence Weiner, Klaus Biesenbach, Aaron Young, among many more. (more…)

Artist James Turrell appeared last week on Charlie Rose’s talk show, in promotion of his blockbuster exhibitions at the Guggenheim, LACMA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  Speaking on his installation at the Guggenheim, his practice and his view on the creating and execution of his work. “Ideas and thoughts are cheap, you can have many of them, but it’s actually pulling these things off and realizing them.  As an artist, you don’t get to count the things you haven’t done.”  He says. (more…)

Antony Gormley, Meter (Installation View), via Thaddeus Ropac

Antony Gormley’s sculptures continually revisit the human form, using a variety of principles in measurement, position, space and density to chart the human body through sharp angles and jutting lines. Taking this jutting, architectural approach to figuration, the artist’s work poses intriguing questions of how humanity recreates its own inherent forms, and the dissonances that occasionally enter the dialogue between subject and object. (more…)

ARTNews’ annual list of the world’s top art collectors has been released, detailing the most prolific and high-spending patrons from around the world.  Among the top 10 are a number of recognizable names, including Eli Broad,  Steven A. Cohen, and François Pinault.  Also of note is a brief article stating the number of collectors willing to spend high dollar amounts for desired works. “I’d say the figure for those going over $20 million is about 150. There are about 100 who would go over $50 million.” Says Sotheby’s Executive Vice President Charles Moffett.   (more…)